


Memories are as unforgiving as her nature.

by spookyserpent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Death, Natalia Romanova - Freeform, Pain, Red Room, Russia mentions, she deserves better, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 03:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19348555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyserpent/pseuds/spookyserpent
Summary: Natasha Romanoff does not get a happy ending, even after everything.





	Memories are as unforgiving as her nature.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate that she had to die but her death inspired this so yeah. Enjoy.

It goes against everything she’s ever been taught. Dying for someone else. Dying in the name of saving people. Dying silently, alone and cold. 

The Red Room taught her pain was a relative and that her death, if she were to end up dead, would be dramatic, in the name of a mission either to fulfil it or for its failure. She always thought it would be a bullet or knife or garrotte. Taking her own life was never an option. 

Yet here she is, staring into the teal depths of Barton’s teary eyes and falling, falling, falling. She almost wants to laugh in the face of death because this, this truly makes her feel the butt of a joke. 

After everything, after saving the world countless times, changing sides and becoming good, she doesn’t get the happy ending. Of course she doesn’t. She’s Natalia Alianovna Romanova, the infamous Black Widow, the Soviet spy with more blood on her hands than she can possibly, ever, wash out. In some cruel way, she deserves this. 

She wants nothing more than to be angry. Why should she die? After everything, why her? But she’s still staring at Clint, in that stillness as she falls, caught in time, in memories and she knows, deep in the recesses of her Russian brain that she would do this time and time again if it meant he lived.

In truth (she’s dying anyway so what’s the point in lying? Lies won’t save her now) she would do this for any of the Avengers. 

They say that your life passes before your eyes when you die, seven minutes of brain activity after death where you supposedly relive your life before you fade and go wherever you believe. 

Her life does not flash before her eyes and for that, she is thankful. There are no memories of the Red Room, no Winter Soldier stare, no fighting or images of a past that’s been altered. 

Instead, she sees them. Her family. Tony’s cheeky smile and alway’s working hands. Steve’s knowing grin and Dorito body. Bruce’s soft look and warm embrace. Thor’s static aura and cocky but calm reserve. Maria’s perfect posture and hidden, mothering nature. Nick’s unfiltered mouth and tough-loving attitude. 

She thinks of Wanda, of Bucky, of Carol and Rocket and Okoye and Rhodey and every other superhero and villain that she’s crossed paths with, who somehow have lived to tell the tale of meeting her. 

Staring at Clint, at the man who decided to save her all those years ago, at the man who has suffered so much, at the man that she has always loved, she comes to the realisation that this is what her Handlers warned her about. 

Love is for children, they said. They told her to never love or trust or care because it would kill her. Natalia is a Widow, she will live and bleed and suffer for her country, for her nation, for Mother Russia. She will be known as the monster under the bed, the name whispered in the shadows, the dread of knowing your death is imminent in her fiery presence. 

For she, Natasha, has loved. And boy, has she lost. 

Hanging between the precipice of life and death is opening all these new doors, blowing back old memoirs and reminding her who she is. She is every cover, every lie, every fight move and every breath. She is the Black Widow, Natalia Romanova but she is also the Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff. 

Does she regret her decision? No. 

Would she do it again? Yes. 

She dies in an instant of cold and fear and pain but she also dies loved. For her selfless act, the red in her ledger truly dissipates. 

Natasha Romanoff dies but her memory does not.


End file.
